One minute the house was quiet, except for my mother humming to herself at the stove. I was working on my laptop, and trying to decide if her chili was worth putting up with Frank’s ugly face across the table for the third night that week. A minute later the man himself charged in, yelling, “How the hell am I supposed to get in the driveway with you blocking me?” I tossed my keys at him, friendly guy that I am, saying, “Here you go. And close the door on your way out, please. My mother’s paying for the heat here.”

He blew up, like I knew he would, which gave me the opportunity to tell him where he could put his car. Then my mother jumped in, yelling at both of us that she couldn’t stand it anymore. That was Frank’s cue to leave, slamming the door so hard the windows rattled. Then my mother started in on me, how I never think about anybody but myself, and after everything she’s been through—meaning my father walking out on her ten years ago—why am I trying to destroy what she has with Frank.

 I busted out laughing. “What you have with Frank?”

For a second I thought she was going to take a swing at me, but she just jabbed me with her finger, saying, “You goddamn well better remember whose house you’re living in, T.J.”
 
Like I needed to be reminded.

I got out of there and started driving nowhere in particular, sticking to the back mountain roads. The sky was thick with clouds and you could smell the snow coming. I’d run out without a jacket and the heater in the car didn’t work, but I wasn’t feeling the cold. I was thinking: Twenty-one years old, living in your mother’s house, taking crap from Frank Morgan.


If it isn’t the losers’ club. Frank said that once to me and Todd and Sam, passing us in the hallway at the high school. Mr. Morgan, famous for his nasty mouth. It was late and the building had emptied out, so it was just us and him. Sam, who was stoned at the time—well, we all were—said nice and loud, “What kind of fucking teacher says something like that to kids?” And that skinny red-headed turd pretended he hadn’t heard and just kept going. It was a beautiful moment, man.
    
The fact is, after graduation, the three of us did okay. Sam started working with his uncle, who’s a plumber and probably makes more than Frank ever did, Todd got a job with the DPW, and I started classes at the community college while I worked part time for my dad at the lumberyard. The first year and a half I split the rent on an apartment with my girlfriend, but after Shari left it was either quit school and work full time, or move in with my mom. My dad’s got a full house so that wasn’t an option.
 
Was I happy living with my mother? No, but I knew it was temporary, and as long as we stayed out of each other’s way it wasn’t too bad. And then she came home one night asking me to guess who she’d run into at the Ramble Inn. What do you know, my old math teacher. Six months later Frank was practically living with us.

Once I tried telling her what Frank was like. Humiliate wasn’t a word I would have used when I was fifteen, but I sure as hell knew what it felt like. Hey, T.J. got one right. Who gave you the answer, T.J.?  Mostly he went after the boys because he was too busy staring at the girls’ asses when they were writing out problems on the chalkboard.

It was like my mother didn’t hear a word I said. All I got from her was: It’s my turn now, T.J. It’s my life.

Right. And a great job you’re doing with it, Mom.

Driving the dark mountain roads that night, I knew I couldn’t go back to that house. So what did that mean? I quit school, get my own place and end up selling nails by the pound for the rest of my life? If I could have buried Frank Morgan alive at that moment I would have done it and walked away with a smile on my face.

Eventually, I cut over to Route 9 and headed down to Filly’s Tavern. Two guys who worked for my dad were at the bar when I walked in. They waved me over and we talked for a couple of minutes. Then I took my beer to an empty booth to wait for Todd and Sam. I was about to sit down when someone said, “Hey, T.J., don’t you say hello to your old friends?”

In our town, you were always running into your past. This time it was Mrs. Fox, my first grade teacher, alone in the next booth. She asked what I was doing and I was telling her about school when this guy turned up with their beers. I’d heard she’d gotten a divorce, and I guessed this was the new boyfriend. When Mrs. Fox introduced us, the guy, Jack Grundy, stuck out his hand, saying, “T.J. Dollar? I know your dad.” That wasn’t a surprise because everyone in town did. Then he said I was welcome to join them if I was alone. I said that was okay, I was waiting for my friends. Later, I wondered how the night would have turned out if I’d accepted his invitation and told them about Frank and me and my mother. Who knows.

I sat down in my booth and as I drank my beer, I thought about Mrs. Fox and first grade and all the stupid things you believe when you’re six years old—that your mother and father love each other, that your family’s never going to change. I figured out what a load of bull that was when I was eleven and my father walked out and my mother pretty much fell apart. I was angry at him for a long time, especially with him starting a new family, but somewhere along the line that switched and I was pissed at her for not getting over it. The way she saw it, I was supposed to spend the rest of my life feeling sorry for her.
 
I’d been nursing my beer for a while when Todd and Sam finally showed. As soon as they sat down, I could tell something was going on. Then Todd gave Sam a jab and I turned to where they were looking. The place was filling up by then, the usual Friday night scene, so I’d missed Frank coming in, but there he was at the bar.

That was all I needed. I said, “The hell with it, I’m leaving,” but Todd said, “Hold on, T.J. You’ve got to hear this.”

I knew it was going to be about Frank, and that I’d be better off not hearing what Todd had to say, but I waited.
 
It turned out that when they got to Filly’s, instead of parking in front like you were supposed to, they drove around back behind the dumpster to smoke a joint. Usually it was deserted there, but this time another car had taken their spot. They knew right away it was Frank’s because who else rides around town with a bumper sticker that says MATH TEACHERS DO IT BY THE NUMBERS. It looked like he was alone so they thought he was getting stoned, and joked about calling the cops and watching him get busted. Then this girl popped up in the passenger seat.

 Todd said, real fast, “It wasn’t your mom, T.J. Even in the dark you could see she was too fat,” and Sam said, “Shit no, man. We wouldn’t of said anything if we thought that.”

I had nothing to say. They were my friends and they were worried about my feelings, but it didn’t help any to think they had to make that point.

Then Sam said, “Check this one out. I bet it’s her.”
 
We all looked toward the door where this girl, young and on the heavy side with long blond hair, was standing by herself, like she wasn’t sure what to do next.

“He makes her wait in the car so it doesn’t look like they’re together,” Sam said. “What a piece of shit.”

The girl walked over to Frank, and we watched him make a big show of being surprised to see her. Then she turned, looking around the room, and I realized who she was.
 
“That’s Amy Franklin,” I said. “She used to live on my road. She’s a kid, maybe fifteen, sixteen.”

That set Todd off, and he started in on how they should have taken pictures. “We could have busted his ass. He’s a teacher and she’s jailbait. You know how many cops are in here right now?” He jerked his head toward two guys at the end of the bar who we knew were town cops. “Plus,” he said, lowering his voice, “the guy with Mrs. Fox is a state cop. I saw his picture in the paper when that old man up at the falls was killed and…”

“Todd,” I said. “Shut up and let me think.” Amy was walking toward the little hallway at the back where the bathrooms were, and I knew this was our chance to get her out of that place. It wasn’t even like I made a decision, more like when the doctor hits your knee with the little hammer and, boom, you move.
 
I told the guys my plan, such as it was, and then headed for the bathrooms to wait for Amy. Sam and Todd got in position to block Frank in case he went after us. I thought the whole thing would take two minutes, but it didn’t work out that way.
 
 First off, Amy took her time in the bathroom. When she finally came out, I said, “Hey, long time,” and she said, “Hey, T.J.,” and kept going. I put my arm around her shoulder, which confused her at first, but then pissed her off when I sort of pulled her past the bar. She tried to jerk away, saying, “Would you get your hands off me,” but I kept pulling, which wasn’t easy because she was a big girl. Then she yelled, “Get the hell away from me, T.J.,” which Frank heard even though the place was noisy. He went, “What’s going on?” and started toward us, but my guys moved in on him. After that there was a lot of yelling and shoving, with the two town cops, who were pretty well lit, trying to out shout everyone. Then Mrs. Fox’s friend, Jack Grundy, stepped in and got them all to shut up except for Amy, who was doing a good job  pretending to be hysterical.

When it got quiet, Grundy said to me, “What’s the story here, T.J.?”

I would have liked to tell him what Frank had had this sixteen-year-old girl doing to him in the front seat of his car, but I couldn’t do that to Amy, as big a pain as she was turning out to be. So I said, “We were just going to take her home. I know she came with Mr. Morgan, and he’s a teacher and all, but it didn’t seem like this was a great place for her to hang out, seeing she’s underage.”
 
For a second it was so quiet you could have heard the snow fall. Then Frank started in on how he’d run into Amy in town and she asked for a lift to Filly’s and he didn’t see any harm in it since all she had to drink was a coke. It was beautiful, man, to see him practically crapping in his pants.

Grundy looked at him with that blank cop face, and then said to me, “You okay to drive?”

“One beer,” I said, holding up a finger, and Tim, the bartender, nodded that that was true.

Grundy said, “Take her home.”

Once we stepped out into the cold, Amy switched from hysterical to furious, cursing us up and down and almost taking Todd’s finger off when she yanked the car door shut with him still holding it. After I got them settled, I went back into Filly’s.
 

Frank was knocking back a shot at the bar and didn’t see me until I was breathing in his face. When I saw the red rising from his neck, I knew if there weren’t cops in the place he would have hauled off. Too bad for us both that we didn’t have it out then.

Before he had a chance to open his mouth, I said, nice and low like I was telling him a secret, “If I see you at my house tonight, I’m going to destroy you. Tomorrow you come and get your shit, and after that you stay away from my mother or you pay.” He started yelling, “It’s not your house, you little…” but I didn’t hear the rest because I was out the door.

Sam had already left for his dad’s bungalow colony where we’d meet up later. Todd and Amy were in the back seat of my car not saying a word. It stayed that way for the whole twenty minute ride to Amy’s house, which was fine with me. After we dropped her off, Todd and I backtracked to Route 9, and then headed north to the bungalows, a few miles outside Laurel Pond.

I pulled in next to Sam’s car, which was behind the bungalow farthest from the road. One night, while we were still in high school, we were driving past the place and saw a light in that same unit. Since the property had been shut down for the winter, Sam thought some migrants might be squatting there illegally. We went to check and found Sam’s dad’s car parked in back. We pretty much figured out what was going on even before we let ourselves in the next day and found booze and condoms on the dresser and a pair of lady’s underwear on the floor next to the bed. All Sam said was, “Screw him. He can use the place, so can we.” From then on that’s where we went to party.

That night it was so cold in the bungalow you could see your breath. We carried the propane heater into the little bedroom and shut the door so the room would heat up fast. Then we wrapped ourselves in wool blankets and sat on the beds while we passed a joint. All I wanted was a nice quiet high, but Sam and Todd kept going over the scene in Filly’s like it was some great victory they had to relive. Victory my ass. Nothing was going to change Amy, and Frank would always be exactly what he was.
 
At one point I went outside saying I needed to take a piss—the water in the bungalow had been shut off for the winter—but really what I needed was the silence. It was just starting to snow, and I felt like I could breathe for the first time that night.

I hadn’t given much thought to where I was going to sleep, but out there in the dark with the snow coming down, it occurred to me that the bungalow would be perfect, and not just for the one night. If Sam’s dad let me have the place real cheap until the summer rentals started, maybe I wouldn’t have to quit school. For five minutes, I was a happy man, planning how I would bring in jugs of water for drinking, bum showers from my friends, keep beer and milk and stuff in a cooler outside. The good feeling lasted until I got inside and realized I couldn’t spend the night there because Frank might be stupid enough or drunk enough to turn up at my mother’s house. I’d promised the man he would pay if he did that, and I had to keep my promise.


When I left a little while later, the snow was sticking, and by the time I got home, it had partially covered the tracks of Frank’s car in our driveway. My first thought: I wanted to get my hands around his neck. My second: I should have stayed at the bungalow, but it was too late for that.
 
I was tempted to ram him, but the noise would carry on our quiet road, and I knew better than to give up the advantage of surprise. Aside from that, I had no plan. It was just like back at Filly’s, making my move like I had no choice, grabbing a steak knife from the kitchen, heading upstairs. My mother must have heard me because she was out of bed, tying her robe, saying, “T.J? Jesus, you scared me.”

I ignored her and went for him, snoring under the covers, stinking of booze and sweat. I grabbed him by his hair and he let out a howl like I was a nightmare come to life. By then I was sitting on him, pinning his arms under the covers and pounding his head into the pillow, up and down, like it was one of those paddle balls on a rubber band. He was screaming at me, kicking and twisting while I was yelling, “What did I tell you, Frank, what did I tell you?” My mother was a wild woman, screaming at me over and over to get off him.  All this time I had the knife in one hand and was hanging onto his hair with the other. Then my mother came at me, yanking my arm so hard I lost hold of  Frank’s hair, which was all it took for him to heave me to the floor. Then he was on top of me, punching my face until I managed to free my arm and bring up the knife. I was aiming for his face, but missed and got him in the neck. Man, there was a lot of blood.

By the time I shoved him off me and got to my feet, my mother had grabbed a towel and was trying to stop the bleeding, yelling that I should call 911. Frank just lay there, not saying anything, or maybe moaning. I don’t remember.

I thought about taking off, but I wasn’t that stupid, so I did what my mother said and made the call. Frank had gotten in some good punches—my lip was split and my nose hurt like hell—but aside from that I wasn’t feeling much. It was like I was there, but wasn’t there. The cops came pretty fast, and then the EMT. I remember one cop yelling, “Drop the knife,” which I did. Then they were on me, one cop shoving me face first into the wall while another cop cuffed me. My mother was crying so hard by then I was sure Frank was dead. I was surprised when one of the EMTs said he wasn’t.
 
I didn’t know Jack Grundy was at the house until I saw him talking to a cop near the front door. I was at the other end of the living room so I didn’t hear what they were saying. Then he came over to me and put a hand on my shoulder and said, “Let’s take a walk.”
 
We went out to the kitchen and he asked how I was doing. I said, “Okay,” because what else was there to say. The clock above the sink said it was one a.m. I’d thought it was much later and wondered if not being able to keep track of time was the first sign you were going nuts. I expected Grundy to ask me what had happened, but instead he asked if I’d paid attention when they read me my rights. I didn’t know what he was getting at and must have looked confused because he said it again. “Were you listening, T.J.? Did you understand?” Then I realized he was telling me to keep my mouth shut until I got a lawyer. I started to say that I didn’t know who to call, but he said, “I called your dad. He’s taking care of it.”

That shook me up because I hadn’t thought about my father until that minute. I mumbled thanks to Grundy for making the call, and then said, “I guess he’s pretty pissed off.”

Grundy looked at me and said, “Is that really what you think your father’s feeling right now, T.J.?”

That did it for me, and I started crying, something I hadn’t done in so long I couldn’t remember when—maybe the day my father moved out. Then I started shivering even though the heat was cranked up, and Grundy said to the town cop who’d just come for me, “Would you mind getting the kid’s jacket. It’s twenty degrees outside.”
 
I said, “It’s in the hall closet,” and the cop left and came back with one that wasn’t mine.

I said to Grundy, “That’s my dad’s.” He hadn’t taken it when he left, and my mother had never thrown it out, so it had been sitting in our closet for years.
 
Grundy said, “It looks warm,” and the other cop muttered something about it being my color as he undid the handcuffs. The jacket was a little big, but Grundy was right, it was warm.

They took me to the police station and put me in a holding cell with two other guys. One was passed out drunk and the other was older, with a gray ponytail. He looked familiar to me from town, and it turned out he used to work at the supermarket. When he started to tell me about his problems with his ex-wife, I said, “Sorry, man, I can’t listen to this right now,” and he said, “That’s cool, no problem.” Then he started talking to himself, which he’d been doing when I got there.

The drunk was taking up the one bench in the cell, so I sat on the floor, huddled in my dad’s jacket, wondering if Grundy had come through the way he had because he knew my dad or because he’d figured out that Frank Morgan was scum. I didn’t know. I also didn’t know whether Frank would live or die, or if I’d spend the rest of my life in prison, or how long I’d have to listen to the guy with the ponytail talking to himself.

That was the great revelation of the night, that I didn’t know anything. It scared the shit out of me, but at the same time it didn’t matter because there was nothing I could do, nothing I had to do but wait.